Programme notes:

My new work, Saxophone Quartet No. 1 “Quadriptych” is unlike anything I have composed thus far and holds a particularly special place in my heart. It all began in 2023, when my long-term friend and colleague, Andrea Jordan-Keane, suggested that I write for her then-newly formed group, Symbios Quartet. However, there was a surprise in her brief: each movement had to feature four of the same type of saxophone. Four baritones, four sopranos, four tenors, then four altos. Four players, sixteen saxophones.

I designed each movement as its own individual tableau, forming the piece’s namesake, Quadriptych. The player who specialises in any specific type of saxophone in the usual quartet lineup (e.g. the tenor player) leads that respective movement (e.g. the four tenors movement). Furthermore, the sound world of each movement is specifically tailored to the leaders’ preferred musical aesthetics. Every part of this quartet is unique, and the sole thread that links them is their collectively idiosyncratic method of conception.

The first movement of the work is called Tarantella Moria, and it’s scored for four baritone saxophones. It was written for Andrea Jordan-Keane, who suggested I evoke the dwarven mines of The Lord of the Rings fame. The music begins slowly and eerily, depicting these caverns of old, and raising questions of what horrors lie within. We soon find out as the music ramps up in pace. An infernal balrog attacks, and the dwarves retaliate. They fight and they fight, but the dwarves would love nothing more than to go to a tavern – the music shifts to a tipsy dance as they reminisce. After hours of gruelling battle, the dwarves of Moria emerge victorious, and presumably have a celebratory pint of mead afterwards.

The next movement is much more grounded, and I called it Elegy on the Name of Richard Gill. It’s scored for four soprano saxophones and was written with Joshua Sumich in mind. Josh is not only a saxophonist but also a seasoned chorister, so it was serendipitous that I had an incomplete movement of a requiem mass that I was able to incorporate into the quartet. The thematic material is drawn from the name of my late music teacher and dear friend, Richard Gill AO. There is no narrative behind the music, just a sincere expression of grief.

Scored for four tenor saxophones, the third movement is named Celestial Chorale. It was written for Blake Bailey, who told me to make it “weird” – a fun prompt indeed. The music starts strangely from the outset, with a descending sequence of chords that struggle to resolve anywhere. After a seemingly normal cadence, the music “ignores it” and continues to modulate sporadically and change textures ad infinitum. It keeps building up until it reaches frenzied climax and launches the listener (and the range of the saxophones) into the stars.

The last movement of this quartet is called Doomscrolling and is scored for four alto saxophones. Grace Kay, who I designed this movement for, approached me with the fascinating idea of recreating short digital attention spans in music. As a veteran doomscroll-er myself, I knew exactly what to write. The pulse of the music changes almost every bar, resembling different stimuli rapidly entering one’s brain. In addition to this, there are many phrases that emerge or cut off abruptly, like forgetting a previous thought as a new post suddenly appears on your social feed. This isn’t meant to be a sobering analysis of the impacts of social media, just an experiment to see how I could encapsulate this phenomenon.